You can also catch the selections AND discuss the book here on the blog.

Our Latest Pick

ELLA MINNOW PEA by Mark Dunn

I actually read Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea several years ago for a book club I was part of and it stuck with me, so now I want to share it with you.  While clearly a literary exercise (as letters fall off a statue – they are removed from the written and spoken vocabulary of an island community by its totalitarian government), it is also a really good story and a thought provoking political statement.

I have read other books that felt like literary exercises to me.  Some work and some don’t.  The one that pops into my mind first is Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.    The book was very highly acclaimed but I found myself distracted by some of his literary devices, and for me that took something away for the book.  I felt like it was a project for a graduate level writing class.  It would get an A for sure, but I want to feel the emotion and discover the plot rather than be cleverly deviced to death.

But back to Ella Minnow Pea.  In this book, the literary device framework does not distract.  Instead it lays a fantastical framework for character development and political observation.  Here are some of the questions the book brought up for me.

How silly are some of the things we worship or revere?

How long would you put up with rules or laws that made no sense to you?

Is there something other than language that we take for granted but couldn’t live happily without?

I could go on and on.  But I’ll let you discover the rest on your own.  If you haven’t already, check out the book club email.  It includes the discussion questions and a great recipe for Spiced Pecans from the Starwoodgal’s  Something’s Burning blog.

Let me know if you try the recipe, what you thought of the book and get ready for a great beach read next month!

– Dana

It is not my nature, or perhaps the nature of any blog that attempts to be linked to a company and based on fact, to approach subjects that are more dire than say, an indictment of modern lit or the praising of a book about a political topic.  However, sometimes, amidst all the noise, one hopes for a clear sound to ring out, to wade through the incessant chatter of people bent on getting their opinion heard and media engines looking to hock the latest wares.  Sometimes a person needs to stand up and at least say “Now hold on a second…”

I’ve heard plenty about Jonathan Safran Foer’s latest book: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and I’m saying “Hold on here…”.  On one hand, he is an author praised for his very well respected Everything is Illuminated (even thrown the fincky label of “genius” by the New York Times) and perhaps there is something to be said, some type of Pirsigian “Quality” to his latest text that creates such a stir amongst the reading public about it.

However, by nature I hate the book.  I am inherently biased against any book that looks to use 9/11 as a vehicle for its story, and even moreso when it comes from the hand of a writer who wasn’t there.  Those of us who were closer–those of us who were in New York–realize that the disaster was global, but the suffering is still uniquely ours in its way and affects many everyday on a conscious or subconscious level.  So a book that wants to take me through a story about it is not exactly inspiring me the way, say, something about the Black Sox would or even something grittier about the Troubles in Ireland.

I’m sure you can tell, but I have a distinct distaste in my mouth about it, one akin to getting so hungry that you can taste your stomach.  I realize that the story undoubtedly looks to add an element to people’s understanding rather than capitalize on the infamy and confusion surrounding the event, but this seems to fail on the “too soon” meter, falling flatly while approaching some type of addendum to Godwin’s Law (which Foer already breached having discussed the Holocaust and Antisemitism in Everything is Illuminated).  It’s hard, however, to swallow a sense of trying to convey emotion over some capitalizing kitsch when Foer has sold the rights to this latest book such that it be made into a film (on that note, Everything is Illuminated will actually be out soon, I suppose he’s two for two).

Perhaps I’m making an error; only I will lose if I restrict my reading list, especially should I cut out books that have been lauded to whatever degree and credence that we are willing to offer the Public, but I will no sooner tell my Japanese roommate about a love story across internment camps in the West than I will have someone traipse through the memories of such a day, be it with stream of consciousness or with a 14 page flipbook or some “Pearl Harbor”-esque abomination filling theatres.

Please, no political commentary below, but feel free to tell me why I’m wrong about this book.  It’s time we stopped talking about if Oprah likes it and started talking about if it’s a worthwhile read and why.